1. Field of the Invention.
The present invention relates, in general, to remote data storage management, and, more particularly, to a reconfiguration system and method for remotely manipulating and reconfiguring one or more data storage devices to modify data storage availability, expandability, and performance.
2. Relevant Background.
With the growing use of distributed or networked computing, enterprises continually battle the problems associated with storing and sharing information. To control costs and safeguard vital enterprise information, enterprises are moving toward centralized data storage or shared storage, which provides the enterprise with the ability to house data for various disparate hosts within one central storage platform. The central storage devices vary significantly and may include mass storage systems including file servers, disk and tape drives, and redundant arrays of inexpensive disks (RAID) devices. These devices are often scalable to provide more data storage capacity (with or without hardware modifications) and are typically reconfigurable to provide different performance. For example, RAID disk arrays or servers can currently be configured to operate at one of seven levels to control the way data is distributed in available memory and the way redundant capacity is implemented.
Unfortunately, after initial configuration of a data storage system and associated network, changes are often needed to improve performance. The demand for information and information access is exploding, and enterprises typically have rapidly changing data sharing environments due to larger applications, intranets, internet access, and large data transfers. Ideally, frequent reconfigurations would be performed to modify the data storage system to better fit the existing needs of the enterprise, but most enterprises have limited themselves to periodic reconfiguration with many enterprises averaging about one reconfiguration per month.
There are several reasons enterprises have limited the number of reconfigurations performed on their data storage systems. The reconfiguration process generally requires an enterprise to determine with its own personnel that reconfiguration is necessary or would be useful, to then contact one or more companies to arrange for an onsite inspection of the data storage system, and then to schedule a time for reconfiguration. This initial request and scheduling period may take days or weeks. In addition to these burdens on the enterprise, existing reconfiguration processes can be expensive (e.g., ranging from $2500 to $5000 or more per reconfiguration excluding any added hardware) in part because the enterprise has to pay for site trips by reconfiguration company personnel. The enterprise cost and inconvenience is increased by the need to take the system out of service or offline while the reconfiguration is being performed. Further, the enterprise often has to provide support personnel to assist or at least monitor the reconfiguration company personnel during their onsite work.
Hence, there remains a need for an improved method and system for reconfiguring enterprise (i.e., client) data storage systems that better meets the client's needs for periodic reconfigurations to optimize their information storage and sharing capabilities (e.g., meets their goals of data storage performance, availability, and expandability). Preferably, such a reconfiguring method and system would be more cost effective than the existing reconfiguring processes and more timely in implementation while being less disruptive of the client's business (e.g., require less system downtime).